Iranian Police Disband Major Drug Ring in Northeastern Province

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iranian law enforcement forces disbanded a major ring involved in heroin trafficking activities in the country’s northeastern province of Khorassan Razavi, a provincial police chief said on Monday.

Commander of Torbat-e-Heydariyeh Law Enforcement Police Ali Shahrokhi said that following the intelligence measures to monitor and chase the ring, police forces were able to seize 5 kilograms of heroin from the drug-traffickers.

He added that drug-traffickers had planned to transit the drug cargo into the provincial capital city of Mashhad.

Iran has been hit in recent decades by drugs smuggling because of its shared 936 kilometer border with Afghanistan, where the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said 74% of the world’s opium was produced in 2012.

Iran is on a major transit route for drugs being smuggled from Afghanistan to Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and the country's war on drug-traffickers has claimed the lives of nearly 4,000 Iranian police forces over the past 34 years since the victory of the Islamic Revolution.

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Iran is netting eight times more opium and three times more heroin than all the other countries in the world combined.